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Responsible for surely the only concept album based around cricket, the Duckworth Lewis Method is the side project of Divine Comedy's Neil Hannon and Pugwash frontman Thomas Walsh. The duo, named after the complicated cricket scoring system, formed in 2008 after Hannon and Walsh met at Father Ted writer Graham Linehan's wedding in Ireland. After Walsh asked Hannon to contribute to a Christmas charity record, the pair discovered a mutual appreciation of ELO and cricket, and decided to combine the two to record an album together. Their self-titled debut was released two days before the 2009 Ashes through Hannon's own label, and reached number 40 in the U.K. charts.

Twenty years after The Crystal Method’s debut album, Vegas, blazed a trail across the American desert, imagining sparkling breakbeat architectures where the early ’90s rave scene had largely crumbled, Scott Kirkland’s pioneering electronic project continues to thrill. On opener “The Raze,” the breakbeats sound bigger than ever, the guitars are practically heavy metal, and the synths have a widescreen grandeur. Electronic textures aglow, atmospheric instrumentals like “Turbulence” and “Let’s Go Home” reflect Kirkland’s parallel career scoring Hollywood films, while vocal standouts like “Ghost in the City” condense his unusual range of influences—breaks, trip-hop, and even hard-charging alt-rock—into potent hybrids.